A tifo from Olympique Lyonnais fans depicting characters from Captain Tsubasa before the match against AS Saint-Etienne on March 30, 2014 at Gerland stadium in Lyon, France. Photo: VCG

"Unbelievable, Jeff," are the words that have come to define former player Chris Kamara's days as a pundit.

The Jeff in question is Jeff Stelling, a man who brings football to life for those fans of English football who are unable to get to the game and have to watch the 3 pm Saturday kickoffs via the recounting of former professionals herded by Stelling.

A blackout on 3 pm kickoffs means that football fans can not watch games live on television so they are forced to either Soccer Saturday or something more unbelievable.

Fictional football teams have long been a staple of English film and TV, and also around the globe, with social media and podcasts offering new avenues alongside print media.

Coronation Street's Weatherfield County FC have been a part of the long-running English soap opera for many years with the club said to have formed - at least in the world of Weatherfield - in 1887. The first mention of them in the soap was when David Barlow signed for them in 1961.

They filmed scenes with Bury FC's Gigg Lane ground filling in for the King's Robes Arena, which added a layer of irony when the League Two side went out of business this season to join the ranks of imaginary­ teams.

Not to be outdone, fierce rival Eastenders has its own fictional team. Walford Town FC, although the last story line involving them of any note was in the early 1990s around the time started to pay attention to the English Premier League.

Even Hollyoaks, British soap's new kid on the block, adopted a fake football team to help tell the story of male rape when Luke Morgan was attacked by a teammate.

While soaps were one constant of British life over the last half century, newspapers were another. The two biggest tabloids had their own fictional football teams - no doubt where their writers honed the creative writing techniques that would fill their transfer rumor columns over the years.

The Sun had Striker!, while the Daily Mirror had Scorer.  The latter from 1989 to 2011 - charting the adventures of Dave Storry at Tolcaster Rovers - while the former chronicled Nick Jarvis at both Thamesford FC and Warbury FC.

Still in use

They were not a patch on the original comic, Roy of the Rovers, which went on to coin a phrase still in use in the English game. 

"Roy of the Rovers stuff," commentators would say for the unbelievable happening, especially if it was a player from a smaller team helping overcome a giant based on Roy Race's exploits with Melchester Rovers.

The comic began in Tiger in 1954 before being launched as a weekly in 1976 and ran into the 1990s before being revived again in recent years, first in the BBC's Match of the Day magazine. Its contribution to football has also been acknowledged by England's National Football Museum.

Roy Race has been involved in everything a soap writer could dream up from kidnap to a helicopter crash, and he ruled the public consciousness for decades before disappearing. Now his legacy is being carried on by his son and granddaughter in modern comics.

Licensing rights

It has traveled from England to Japan, where arguably the biggest of all football comics comes from. Captain Tsubasa recounts the wholly invented adventures of Tsubasa Oozora, a talented Japanese footballer that travels the world on the back of his talent.

Tsubasa's anime rather than print outings featured such fanciful clubs as FC Brancos, FC Catalayuna and FC Piemonte (standing in for Santos, Barcelona and Juventus respectively) as per licensing rights.

It is a similar story why fans of popular video game Pro Evolution Soccer (PES) have had to put up with Man Red (Manchester United) and Merseyside Blue (Everton). PES' Master League mode, which allowed users to guide a team of ­computer-generated team to glory. There are generations of fans who invested in the likes of Valeny, Minanda, Espimas and Castolo.

Video games are where the Hurricanes found themselves, a team created solely for a cartoon produced by a UK-US combination in the early 1990s. 

The team were the best in the world - at the least the best owned by a 16-year-old girl advised by a dog, but had to battle the might of the all-powerful Gorgons every episode. 

Television has used fake football teams for many a year, with the finest of all perhaps being the Castlefield Blues of the BBC's late 1990s Playing The Field series.

Based loosely on the Doncaster Belles, and filmed with their players, the team won football matches and won a nation's hearts thanks to the scriptwriters.

At a similar time was Earls Park FC (of Footballers' Wives) and the Harchester United of Dream Team, both of which played up the soap opera element with eye-watering storylines.

Eleswhere, on children's television were the mighty Renford Rejects, a ragtag bunch in the way that only children's television can create, who rarely won a game but continue to ride the wave of nostalgia on social media.

Characters from Captain Tsubasa are exhibited in Shanghai on July 9, 2019. Photo: VCG

Online craze

Social media has offered a new platform for fake football. 

Twitter-only football club Streatham Rovers have been likened to performance art with their universe that includes the Xtermin8 Rat Poison Football League rivals Dynamo Catford and sponsors such as Herod Eviction Services and Russian public relations outfit Internet Research Agency.

Ashwood City, the subject of the podcast The Offensive, are another product of the modern era. It is spectacular listening.

Better still is the discussion, to be found on the "Quickly Kevin, Will He Score?" podcast of Steve Bruce's series of books Striker, Defender, Sweeper that saw a fictional manager Steve Barnes investigate murders at Leddersford Town. 

Thankfully Bruce was allowed to take a break from writing to take over the far more unbelievable Newcastle United.